Conserving Wildlife

1
 Biodiversity Crisis
– 20% of present day species will be
extinct by the middle of this century.

– 2,000 of the world’s 8,600 species of

birds could go extinct.

– Frog species have declined; 400 species

extinct.

2
 Biodiversity Crisis
• Members of Homo sapiens wreaked
havoc, even in prehistoric times
• In North America, 74%–86% of mega
fauna became extinct after humans arrived
• Caused by hunting and burning/clearing of
forests

3
 Biodiversity Crisis
• The majority of recent extinctions have occurred
in the past 150 years, primarily in islands.
– Increase in rate of extinction is the heart of the
biodiversity crisis.
• Birds recognized as critically endangered
increased 8% from 1996 to 2000.
• Half of Earth’s plant species may be threatened.
• 2/3 of vertebrate species could perish by the end
of this century.
• 85 species of mammals have gone extinct in last
400 years.
4
 Biodiversity Crisis
• Disease has affected:
• Bats – white nose syndrome WNS Pseudogymnoascus
destructans fungus
• Birds – avian pox
• Amphibians – chytrid fungus (chytridiomycota)

• Loss of habitat, especially forests and wetlands, is due to

human expansion:
• Many predators and prey
• Fish
• Mussels

• Invasive species are displacing natives.

• Human-caused climate change is affecting temperature and

moisture requirements of plants and wildlife.
5
 Biodiversity Crisis
• Current mass extinction is notable
because:
– It is the only such event triggered
by a single species (Homo
sapiens), called the Anthropocene.
– Recovery takes a few million years.
– It is not clear how biodiversity will
rebound this time.
• Humans are utilizing resources that new
species would need to evolve.
6
7
 Copyright © The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Permission required for reproduction or
display.
0

Cretaceous

100

Five major mass extinctions

have been identified, with the
most severe one occurring at 200 Triassic

the end of the Permian period Permian

Millions of years ago

(240 MYA) when more than half 300

of all plant and animal families Devonian

and as much as 96% of all 400

species may have perished. Ordovician

500
We are now experiencing the
sixth mass extinction, the age
of the Anthropocene. 600
0 200 400 600 800 1000
Number of families

8
 Biodiversity Crisis
Copyright © The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Permission required for reproduction or display.
biodiversity
“hot spots”

Caucasus

Mediterranean Mountains of
Basin South-Central
California China
Floristic
Province Caribbean Western Indo-Burma
Ghats &
Polynesia Sri Lanka Philippines
& Micronesia Mesoamerica
Brazilian
Eastern Arc Ploynesia
Chocó Cerrado
Guinean Mountains Wallacea & Micronesia
Forests of &
Tropical West Africa Coastal Sundaland
Andes Forests
Succulent
Central Atlantic Karoo Madagascar New Caledonia
Chile Forest & Indian Ocean
Cape Floristic Islands Southwest
Province Australia
New Zealand

Hotspots: areas where species have high

endemism and are disappearing at a
rapid rate; red areas are hotspots
9
 Biodiversity Crisis
• Endemic species: species found naturally in only one
geographic area and no place else
– Usually occupy restricted ranges due to behavior or feeding
requirements
• Karner blue butterfly of Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore
and other Great Lakes regions, now extinct in the park.

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 Biodiversity Crisis

25 hotspots have been identified.

Contain nearly half of all terrestrial
species in the world.
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 Biodiversity Crisis
• Human population growth is occurring in
hotspots.
• By protecting 1.4% of the world’s land surface
– 44% of the world’s vascular plants
– 35% of its terrestrial vertebrates can be
preserved.

• In 1995, 20% of the human population was

located in hotspots.

• Growth rate exceeds the average in 19 hotspots.

12
 Biodiversity Crisis
Why are species going extinct in hotspots?
• High rates of habitat destruction
– Land cleared for agriculture, housing, economic
development
• More than 70% of the original area of each hotspot
has already disappeared
• Only 15% or less of original habitat remains in 14
hotspots
– 90% Madagascar forest lost
– 95% Brazilian Atlantic coast forest lost
• 15 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions come
from deforestation, and countless species of plants
and animals losing their habitats every single day.
13
 Value of Biodiversity
1. Direct economic value includes resources
for our survival
– Sources of food, medicine, clothing, biomass (for
energy and other purposes), and shelter
– Food crop genetic variation
• May be needed in the future to improve crops
– 40% of prescription and nonprescription drugs
have active ingredients extracted from plants
• Aspirin (from willow)
• Cancer-fighting drugs (taxol, from Pacific Yew)

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 Value of Biodiversity
2. Indirect economic value is derived from
ecosystem services:
– Maintain high quality of natural water,
buffer against storms and droughts
– Prevent loss of minerals and nutrients
– Moderate local and regional climate
– Absorb pollution
– Promote breakdown of organic wastes and
cycling of minerals

15
 Value of Biodiversity
• Economists have recently been able to compare the
societal value, in monetary terms, of intact habitats
compared with the value of destroying those habitats
• In Thailand, coastal mangrove habitats are cleared
for shrimp farms
– Shrimp farm value is vastly outweighed by the benefits in
timber, charcoal production, offshore fisheries, and storm
protection provided by the mangroves
Copyright © The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Permission required for reproduction or display.

Mangrove, Thailand
80,000
(US$ per hectare)
Economic Value

60,000

40,000

20,000

0
Intact Shrimp Farming

a. 16
© Juan Carlos Muñoz/agefotostock
 Value of Biodiversity
Copyright © The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Permission required for reproduction or display.

Tropical rainforests
provide more
economic benefits if
they are left
standing than if they
are destroyed and Tropical Forest, Cameroon
3,000

the land used for

(US$ per hectare)
Economic Value
2,000

other purposes. 1,000

0
Reduced-impact Small-scale
– 1,000 Logging Farming
Plantation
– 2,000

b.
© Andoni Canela/agefotostock

17
 Value of Biodiversity
• Problems of valuing ecosystems – have to
put it in economic terms:
– Do not have a good estimate of the
monetary value of services provided by
ecosystems.
– People who gain the benefits of
environmental degradation are often
NOT the same people who pay the costs
– urban impoverished areas (landfills,
waste disposal, poor infrastructure).
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 Value of Biodiversity
3. Ethical and aesthetic values are
based on our conscience
– Every species has a value of its own.
– Humans should act as guardians or
stewards for the diversity of life
around us.
– How do we place a value on beauty?
• What if it no longer existed?

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 Factors Responsible
• Variety of causes for extinctions
– Overexploitation
– Habitat loss
– Introduced species
– Disruption of ecosystem interactions
– Pollution
– Loss of genetic variation
– Catastrophic disturbances (such as
disease) 20
21
 Factors Responsible
• Case Study: Amphibians on the decline
• 1963, Jay Savage Costa Rica
– Many breeding toads, bright orange
• Bufo periglenes, Golden Toad
• 1989, only a single male was observed
• Today, no toads
• They have gone
extinct
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 Factors Responsible
• Frogs in trouble – habitat loss and chytrid
fungus, Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis
– Frog populations that had once been
abundant – now decreasing or entirely
gone. Fungus infects nearly 700 species.

– 43% of amphibian species experienced

decreases in population size. 500 species
pushed toward extinction, 200 are extinct.

23
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51

86
47
191 46 66
45 48
74 53 68
61
52
208
110 50 55
163
78

Amphibian 47

extinction # threatened amphibian species

crisis
Venezuela Panama Madagascar Australia

Dendrobates leucomelas Atelopus zeteki Mantella aurantiaca Litoria caerulea

(1): © Brian Rogers/Natural Visions; (2): © David M. Dennis/Animals Animals; (3): © Craig K. Lorenz/Photo Researchers, Inc.; (4): © David A. Northcott/Corbis
24
 Factors Responsible
Natural habitats may be adversely affected by
humans.
1. Habitat destruction*
2. Pollution
3. Disruption
4. Habitat fragmentation, reduction in
species richness and increase of
genetic bottlenecks
5. Invasive species
6. Climate change**
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 Factors Responsible
1. Destruction of habitat
– Clear-cut harvesting of timber
– Burning of tropical forests
– Urban and industrial development
• 10-fold increase in habitat area leads
to ~ doubling in the number of
species – goal of restoration
• Relationship suggests that if the area is
reduced by 90% then half of all species
will be lost 26
 Factors Responsible
Destruction of Copyright © The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Permission required for reproduction or display.

Rainforest covering rain forest

cover

the eastern coast Africa

of Madagascar:
• 90% habitat loss
• Many extinctions
• 16 of 31 primate
species
threatened or
extinct Before human 1950
colonization
1985 2000

27
 Factors Responsible
2. Pollution
– Species can no longer survive
– Aquatic environments particularly
vulnerable
– Many lakes “sterilized” by acid rain
3. Disruption
– Visitors to bat caves: four visits per
month caused 86%–95% decline in
population size
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 Factors Responsible
4. Habitat fragmentation: dividing the habitat
up into small, unconnected areas
– Disastrous consequences because of the
inverse relationship between range size
and extinction rate
– Edge effects: changes in microclimate
along the edge of a habitat
Copyright © The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Permission required for reproduction or display.

29
1831 1882 1902 1950
 Factors Responsible
• Landowners in Manaus, Brazil, preserved patches of
rain forest of different sizes to examine the effect of
patch size on species extinction
• Extinction rate was negatively related to patch size
• Even the largest patches (100 hectares) lost half of
their bird species in less than 15 years

30
 Factors Responsible
• Songbird declines
• Year-round residents have prospered (robins)
• Migrant songbirds have declined severely
– Nest in northern forests in summer but spend winter in South
or Central America or the Caribbean Islands
• Nationwide, American redstarts declined about 50%
in 10 years
• Only about half as many birds fly over the Gulf of
Mexico each spring as in the 1960s
• Culprit
– Habitat fragmentation and loss
– Availability of winter habitat declined

31
 Factors Responsible
Copyright © The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Permission required for reproduction or display.
Stable Carbon Isotope Values Ratio
(13C:12C)

May 12 May 17 May 22 May 27 June 1

(left): Data from Marra, Hobson, Holmes, “Linking Winter & Summer Events,” in Science, Dec. 1998, (right): © John Gerlach/Animals

American Redstart
Early arrivals, which have higher reproductive
success, have lower proportions of 13C to 12C,
indicating they wintered in more favorable
mangrove–wetland forest habitats 32
 Factors Responsible
5. Introduced, invasive species
threaten native species and habitats
– Colonization: process by which a species
expands its geographic range
– What was naturally a rare process has
become all too common in recent years
due to humans.
– Ecological interactions may be strong
because species have not evolved ways of
adjusting to the presence of one another.
33
 Factors Responsible
• Human influence on colonization
Invasive plants and animals can be
transported in the ballast of large
ocean vessels.

Typha angustifolia
(narrow leaf cattail)

Zebra mussels 34
 Factors Responsible
• 50,000 non-native species have been
introduced in the United States
• Effects
– $140 billion per year in economic costs
– Human health: West Nile fever
– Hawaii: mosquitoes brought malaria – birds
affected.
• 70% native fauna extinct or restricted to high
elevations

35
 Factors Responsible
• Effect may not be direct, but spread
through the ecosystem
– Argentine fire ant has spread through
much of the southern U.S., reducing
populations of native ant species
• Negative effect on coast horned lizard
which feeds on native ants
• Native ants spread seeds, introduced
ones do not

36
 Factors Responsible
• Efforts to combat non-native
introduced species:

– Eradicating extremely difficult,

expensive, and time consuming.

– Prevent introduction.

37
 Factors Responsible
Disruption of Copyright © The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Permission required for reproduction or display.

ecosystems can
cause an
extinction 1. Whales:
Overharvesting of
plankton-eating whales may

cascade. have caused an increase in

plankton-eating pollock
populations.
2. Nutritious fish:
Populations of nutritious fish
like ocean perch and herring
declined, likely due to
competition with pollock.

Human activities
that affect one 4. Killer whales:
3. Sea lions and harbor seals:
Sea lion and harbor seal
populations drastically declined
in Alaska, probably because the
less-nutritious pollock could not

species can have With the decline in their prey

populations of sea lions and
seals, killer whales turned to a
new source of food: sea otters.
sustain them. 7. Kelp forests:
Severely thinned by
the sea urchins, the
kelp beds no longer
support a diversity of

ramifications fish species, which

may lead to a decline
in populations of
eagles that feed on the fish.
5. Sea otters:

throughout an Sea otter populations declined

so dramatically that they
disappeared in some areas.

ecosystem, 6. Sea urchins:

Usually the preferred food
of sea otters, sea urchin

ultimately affecting populations now exploded

and fed on kelp.

many other
species. 38
 Factors Responsible
• Loss of keystone species may disrupt
ecosystems
– Sea otters are a keystone species of kelp
forest ecosystems.
– Keystone species is a qualitative concept.
– Flying fox bats are a keystone species:
• Pollinate plants;
• Key disperser of seeds;
• Elimination due to hunting and habitat loss
is having a devastating effect.
39
 Factors Responsible
• Small populations are vulnerable to extinction.
– Heath hen – extinct in 1932
• Once common in U.S.
• Hunting, fire, and predation ravaged population
– Dusky seaside sparrow extinct in 1990
• Dwindled to a population of 5 males
Copyright © The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Permission required for reproduction or display.

a.
40
b.
a: ANSP © Steven Holt/stockpix.com; b: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
 Factors Responsible
• Lack of genetic variability is a second
dilemma small populations face
– Genetic drift and bottlenecks (Karner
blue butterfly)
• Populations lacking variation composed of
sickly, unfit, or sterile individuals
• More genetically variable individuals have
greater fitness.

41
 Copyright © The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Permission required for reproduction or display.

Polymorphism (%) 40

30

20

10

0
1 100 1,000 10,000 100,000 1,000,000
Population Size (log)

Loss of genetic variability in small populations (graph shows increase in

genetic variability – polymorphisms – with increased population size)

42
 Preserving Species
Copyright © The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Permission required for reproduction or display.

• Destroyed habitats can

sometimes be restored.
• Restore plants and
animals to invasive
species impacted a.

lands, abandoned farm

lands, or abandoned
urban lands.
• No restoration is ever
truly pristine.
b.
a-b: © University of Wisconsin-Madison Arboretum

43
 Preserving Species
• Case Study: Peregrine Copyright © The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Permission required for reproduction or display.

falcon
• DDT banned in 1972 as
a result of the US EPA
100 pairs observed
pairs nesting
pairs producing offspring

80

and EDF actions.

Number of Pairs of Peregrines

60

– Captive breeding 40

program began in 20

1970. 0
1980 1982 1984
Y ear
1986 1988 1990

– 1986: over 850 birds Data from The Peregrine Fund

released in 13 states.
44
 Conservation of Ecosystems
• Conservation plans are becoming
multidimensional.
– Conserve pristine areas and surrounding
areas with some disturbance – example:
national parks and adjacent lands.
– Inclusion means more total area available.
• Must be managed in a way compatible with
local land use.
• Provide corridors for dispersal.
• Reduce further development.
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 Indiana

presettlement 20th century

46
47
Spatial
solutions are
provided for
society’s
land-use
objectives.

48
49
50
Wildlife overpasses link corridors.

Belgium Montana

Banff National Park,

New Jersey Alberta, Canada
 Animals in Indiana - Mammals

Allegheny Woodrat Groundhog

Bats (several species) Feral Hog
Black Bear Mink
Badger Muskrat
Beaver Oppossum
Bobcat Raccoon
Coyote Red Fox
Mountain Lion River Otter
Wolf Squirrel, Fox, Red,
Chipmunk Gray
Cottontail Rabbit Striped Skunk
Eastern Mole Weasels
Gray Fox White-tailed Deer
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 Bats – many threatened in Indiana
https://www.in.gov/dnr/fishwild/8450.htm
CAVE BATS
Common Name Conservation Status in Primary Summer Roost Sites
Indiana

Big brown bat None Trees/Structures

Gray bat State Endangered Caves/Mines

Indiana bat State Endangered Trees

Little brown bat Special concern Trees/Structures

Northern long-eared bat Special concern Trees

Tri-colored bat(pipistrelle) Special Concern Trees

53
 MIGRATORY TREE BATS

Common Name Conservation Status In Found in Trees During

Indiana
Eastern red bat Special Concern Summer
Evening bat State Endangered Summer
Hoary bat Special Concern Summer

Silver-haired bat Special Concern Spring/Fall migration

RARE BATS

Common Name Conservation Status In History

Indiana
Eastern small-footed bat Special Concern First recorded in 2009

Rafinesque’s big-eared bat Special Concern Last recorded in 1962

Southeastern bat Special Concern Last recorded in 1977

Rafinesque’s big-eared bat Special Concern Last recorded in 1962

Southeastern bat Special Concern Last recorded in 1977

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Birds- 422 species included in the official list. 125 are classed as rare,
10 have been introduced to North America, three are extinct, and three
have been extirpated.

Reptiles – 51 species

Amphibians – 36 species

Fish – 227 species

Insects and other arthropods – at least 643 species of insects, 400

species of spiders known to occur in Indiana.

Mollusks (native mussels) – originally 80, now nearly half of Indiana’s

native freshwater mussel species are either already gone (extirpated)
from the state or are listed as endangered or species of special
concern.
Habitat loss, channelization of waterways, dredging, pollution,
invasive species, etc. contribute to loss of native animal species.
55
Habitat Protection

56
 Habitat Restoration
https://www.boredpanda.com/brazilian-couple-recreated-forest-sebastiao-
leila-salgado-reforestation

Brazil: Photographer And His Wife Plant

2 Million Trees On 1,502 Acres In 20
Years To Restore A Destroyed Forest
And Even The Animals Have Returned.

• 172 bird species

• 33 species of mammals
• 293 species of plants
• 15 species of reptiles
• 15 species of amphibians

An entire ecosystem rebuilt from scratch.

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 Cowles Bog
Wetland Complex,
200 acres

2002

Hybrid cattail removal

over 13 year period

2015

58
Local Preservation and Restoration in
Indiana
National Park

State Parks

Shirley Heinze Land Trust

The Nature Conservancy

Sierra Club Hoosier Chapter

Izaak Walton League

Private Efforts
59
 Citizen Science Opportunities
www.CitizenScience.gov a catalog of federally supported citizen science projects
and toolkits (Crowdsourcing and Citizen Science Act of 2016 (15 USC 3724).

Monarch Watch

Vanessa Migration Project: http://vanessa.ent.iastate.edu

Great Backyard Bird Count

Birdcam

Christmas Bird Count

Dragonfly Mercury Project

http://www.citsci.org

USA National Phenology Project

National Parks Bioblitz

NW Indiana Bat Monitoring Project

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